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A battery-powered small unmanned aircraft system recently shattered a world endurance record, flying for more than eight hours in the desert heat — a milestone achieved using critical propulsion components assembled by the Army’s organic industrial base. Continue reading
Iran has a large and varied unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) arsenal, which it has frequently used in combat. The origins of the Iranian drone programme date to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, and it continued to evolve as a key component of Iran’s asymmetric warfare strategy in order to compensate for Tehran’s longstanding disadvantage in conventional manned aircraft. Continue reading
This video explores the history of the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar and its transition into a specialized gunship during the Vietnam War. The examination covers the engineering challenges of converting obsolete cargo haulers into effective weapons platforms capable of dominating the night sky. Continue reading
AeroVironment, Inc. has announced a planned $100 million investment in a unified company-owned campus on approximately 20 acres in Moorpark, California. The campus will bring teams and capabilities from five leased Southern California locations together to strengthen collaboration across research, engineering, design, prototyping, and production.
A frayed wire likely triggered stray voltage to shut off a fuel valve, causing the catastrophic loss of an MQ-9 Reaper drone last August, according to a new Air Force investigation report. Continue reading
The U.S. Army tested an autonomous breaching vehicle with an onboard counter-UAS (C-UAS) turret during a live-fire exercise at Fort Bragg on August 18. As part of Project Sandhills 2.0, self-driving Ford F-250 trucks were put through their paces, some armed with computer-controlled drone-killing shotgun turrets. Continue reading
Swarm Aero, a developer of large unmanned aerial vehicle swarms, recently announced over $10 million in contracts with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to perform research and development on the company’s novel, high-rate composite manufacturing approach and produce aircraft parts for the U.S. Air Force.
Ukraine marked its 35th Independence Day with a military display unlike any it had staged before: robots on the streets of Kyiv, naval drones on the Dnipro river and UAVs in the skies above the capital, showcasing technologies that have transformed the battlefield since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Continue reading